I sense you don't know that "correlation does not imply causation"...

I'm afraid that we are a bot off-topic, but I'd be interested in knowing where you obtained your information about the Kaiser Foundations study. The Foundation is not a part of Kaiser Permanente, it merely reports medical statistics but as far as I'm aware they make no recommendations for or against anything. I would stand corrected if you could qualify your statement with a link that I could review. Thank you.

Please start a new thread. This thread is dedicated to the bashing of pit bulls...

The police did nothing?

A well trained dog can be amazing, I used to admire “Daddy”, Cesar Milan’s pit bull. But if you observed this dog, every 7 seconds he’d look at Cesar as if to say, “Am I being a good dog, now? Am I doing what you want?” And I mean EVERY 7 seconds or so. THAT is training. But there is only one Cesar, I stopped breeding because I didn’t feel comfortable with people who bought a “cute” puppy, not ready for what that dog needs when full grown.

First let me say that my heart breaks for the family that lost their precious pup. My daughter rescued a pit bull several years ago. There was no back history on the dog but the tears in his ears and bite marks on his body spoke volumes. I thought my daughter was crazy to take on this responsibility. Well, this was the sweetest dog and the name she gave him, Romeo, speaks volumes. Problem is that his very muscular build and massive jaws had the potential to do real damage. Thankfully that never happened. As for labs being high on the list of frequent biters…my golden retriever bit me, requiring a tetanus shot and stitches. He had always been docile up to that point. The bottom line is, just like people, any animal could snap at anytime. Being a responsible owner makes for a good dog. And above all, there is a leash law for a reason! I see way to many walked off leash. I currently have the 13th dog of my life and cannot imagine life without her.

Again, my sympathies to the family that lost their precious dog.

I think your Russian Roulette analogy is perfect.

I know two women who have pit bulls. Both of these women are highly intelligent and successful, but when it comes to their dogs, common sense seems to not be a factor.

They definitely subscribe to that embedded mantra, “It’s not the dog. It’s the owner.” (I have always found that to be an arrogant statement on the part of pit bull owners, like they think they are in some special category that can overcome nature.)

One of these pit bull owners has small children and likes to talk about how “good” the pit is with the kids although highly territorial in most other situations…..Hellooo, sounds like a time bomb to me. (I cringe, and hope I never regret keeping my mouth shut — which would not make any difference anyway. The mantra would continue.)

Years ago, we were at a small party at the home of someone with a pit. The dog had taken a liking to Mr. Boomer and was sitting next to him. I later sat down with the dog between us and when I turned to talk to Mr. B, that dog growled in my face. I made sure not to even look at Mr. Boomer after that and quickly made polite excuses to leave. I think I could have lost my face had I not taken that dog’s hint. I am sure glad I had sense enough to read that dog.

I find Nature/Nurture to be fascinating, whether in dogs or people……

As a parallel to Nature/Nurture in dogs, I think of the dog we got not long after we were married. We wanted a middle- sized dog, so I looked at newspaper ads where I found a Brittany Spaniel……..

She was a beauty, who knew more about her ancestry that we know about ours. Her grandpa was a field champion. Her markings were perfect, just like the orange and white Brittany pictures in books.

We do not hunt birds or anything else. We just wanted a pet. I bought a book about Brittany Spaniels that I called my Brittany Spaniel Manual. I still remember the first sentence, “The Brittany is at home at the hearth as well as at the hunt.”

She had a wonderful life with us for over 16 years — before that last ride to the vet.

But, here’s the thing, even though she was our pet and lived in the house and had never, ever been taken hunting, we soon realized that when outside, her nose was almost always sniffing the air, not the ground, and she would often go into a perfect point and could hold that point forever.

There was a big county park close to us and those were the days when we could let her run there. One day, she was flushing birds from cattails by the lake and a man who was watching tried his best to buy her from us.

The point of this dissertation on our Brittany Spaniel is that she had been bred to hunt and it was in her nature and showed up whenever she got the chance to go into her perfect point or to flush birds. It was fun to see and we gave her many opportunities to exercise and show off her bird dog nature, though we did not carry along a shotgun — much to her disappointment, I’m sure. :)

Nature/Nurture? I think — and have seen — that both are always there, whether in people or dogs.

There is an old saying, “What’s bred in the bone comes out in the flesh.” — Applied to a bird dog? That’s OK. But when applied to a pit bull………………

Boomer

I neglected to mention in my previous post the Pit Bulls were once used as “nanny dogs” because they were so good with children. That leads me to believe that nature/nurture plays a huge part in the reputation of this breed.

It's a good job nature and genetics decided Chihuahua's should be small.
If they were large dogs, they would eat Pit bulls for breakfast.
Dachshunds are stroppy little boogers as well.
It's the 'ankle snappers' you have to be careful of!

Hey Boomer,

Was I replying to you? Didn't think so...

Oh, and thanks for keeping track of post counts. We can always "count" on you for that!

Insurance companies operate using Actuary Tables and Statistical Analysis. If they allow or disallow Boxers or any other breeds it isn't because someone knows someone who has a gentle Dog. They take statistics on dog attacks seriously and don't dismiss them because they've owned 3 Boxers and those 3 never hurt anyone.

Let's stay on topic regarding the dangerousness of Pit Bulls. To do that I'll admit I was wrong to use Covid shots as a comparison. OK. With that out of the way... Since you trust statistics that tell us more vaxxed than non-vaxxed are getting sick- do you also trust the statistics that tell us that year after year Pit Bulls are the #1 killer of people?

There are people in forums that stand off to the side- holding a big fan, always on the lookout for a spark they can fan into a flame. Seeing these fires flare- and Causing these fires to flare feeds some persistent hunger they have that is only satisfied when they see others unhappy. The other way they get the food to feed this weakness is by directly insulting others.

I was replying to a post from 'Nucky' regarding his old Boxer.
Nothing to do with Insurance Claims, Actuary Tables or Statistical Analysis, or how Boxers were rated on the dangerous dog scale.
Anecdotal responses are still allowed I believe!